Call the Great Beast

This isn't really much of a rules question, but more of a question of why things are the way they are.

Call wrote:

+1 Stealth Action.
Out this card on the acting Baali and put X ritual counters on it, where X is the capacity of this Baali. This Baali may put a ritual Counter on this card as a +1 Stealth Action. When this card has more than 10 ritual counters, Burn this baali and choose three Disciplines. This card becomes a Unique Clanless Independent Infernal Vampire with a 9 Capacity, 4 Strength, and 3 Bleed. The Great Beast has the chosen three Disciplines at superior. Move 9 blood to it from the blood bank. The Great beast may enter combat with a minion controlled by another Methuselah as a Action, and can prevent 1 damage each combat.

I posted this in the VTES WORLD Facebook group,


and it was pointed out that that the Great Beast's Strength and Bleed are set. While this is correct by the strict reading of text on the card, I could find no example of a Vampire having a set strength or bleed value. I realize that there's the implication that The Great Beast would be wasted pulling up stop signs, but I can't think of any situation where the set bleed is relevant. Furthermore, I'm unsure if that's the appropriate way to show those values on what is effectively a crypt card.

Personally, my guess is that when the dev team realized what a squinter the text on the card would be, they clipped every 'unnecessary' character from the wording they could.

I think someone during the playtest managed to hit for 13 aggro unpreventable under IG. The set to 4 stopped that as TS was a key part

Could the token have the D action and prevent effect on it?

On wording:
I feel like by bloodlines the template had been switched to "+X strength/bleed" over "X hand damage" for multiple sets. Maybe it was Design intent to leave clarity by templating as an ally, or possibly this card was even originally summoning an ally but it was deemed too fragile to be worth the cost of the summoning vamp?
Bloodlines is full of classy allies like Rock Cat and High Top(maybe not "full" since I only skipped the herold but still) maybe they were set on that brainwave since 1800GREATBEAST is a library card?

It's not super important since it only interacts with TSP but it is a bit odd. I think it's the first comes into play card summoning a vampire that isn't a bug 1cap that gets any strength bonus, as create gargoyle is a 2cap but follow most existing bug templating, and brother in arms does as well.

Edit: scratch the last theory since Abomination was from DS and isn't templated wrong.

Ankha wrote:

self wrote:

and it was pointed out that that the Great Beast's Strength and Bleed are set. While this is correct by the strict reading of text on the card, I could find no example of a Vampire having a set strength or bleed value. I realize that there's the implication that The Great Beast would be wasted pulling up stop signs, but I can't think of any situation where the set bleed is relevant. Furthermore, I'm unsure if that's the appropriate way to show those values on what is effectively a crypt card.

Personally, my guess is that when the dev team realized what a squinter the text on the card would be, they clipped every 'unnecessary' character from the wording they could.

It was probably a question of space. Currently, a set bleed value doesn't interact with any card. A set strength value interacts with Torn Signpost, and that's all.

If it was a question of space, why spell out "three," but use numerals for all other numbers? That's an extra 8 characters. That leads me to believe using set values was a mistake rather than a conscious decision.